Retro Film Review: Mighty Joe Young (1998)

While most remakes in Hollywood don't make any sense, some show at least signs of intelligent reasoning in major studio offices that green-lighted them. This could be applied mainly to the remakes of movies that weren't particularly popular or successful. One such example is Mighty Joe Young, 1949 film about giant gorilla, today known only for Ray Harryhausen's stop motion animation. Almost half a century later, in 1998, Disney remade that movie under direction by Ron Underwood.

The plot starts in Africa where huge gorilla named "Joe" and Jill Young (played by Charlize Theron), daughter of environmental activist, have one thing in common - as children, they both witnessed their mothers being killed by poachers. Jill, who grew up and decided to continue with mother's legacy, is determined to protect her best friend "Joe" from the outside world. This proves to be difficult because, due to specific combination of genes, "Joe" grew up to enormous size, enough to become a local legend. Scientist Gregg O'Hara (played by Bill Paxton) tracks "Joe" down and offers better alternative to the life of hiding - "Joe" is to be transported to Los Angeles zoo where he would live in safety from poachers. Jill reluctantly agrees and travels to America. There it turns out that poachers, led by evil Andrei Strasser (played by Rade Šerbedžija), have some sinister plans with "Joe".

Mighty Joe Young proves that Hollywood can put its huge technological resources to good use. Special effects in this film are very convincing and "Joe" is formidable character. However, the technical wizardry is less impressive than paper-thin plot and one-dimensional characters. On the other hand, Charlize Theron has at least some charisma and talent to hold the film together, although her chemistry with Bill Paxton, unlike her chemistry with special effects that portray gorilla, leave much to be desired. Probably the biggest disappointment is Rade Šerbedžija - once the giant of former Yugoslav cinema is now reduced to playing cartoonish villains with heavy foreign accents.

However, the action and plot of film remains family-friendly throughout the film. In an age where so many Hollywood films are infantile while being inappropriate to children, Mighty Joe Young looks refreshing.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on October 19th 2004)

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